


Falling through the haze like a cannonball (like I’m crashing bones)

by hoasen



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Not Beta Read, Time Travel Fix-It, they just don't know it yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23397175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoasen/pseuds/hoasen
Summary: Itachi miscalculates. Sasuke who sees more things than the village would like and the voices in his head have a thorough plan.Konoha might not be standing where it is by the time this is over. It's deserved.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 23
Kudos: 126





	1. the setting sun was higher than it ever was before

**Author's Note:**

> kishimoto will pry naruto fix-its from my cold, dead hands

YOUR TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Mornings are clawed skin against hardwood floors as Sasuke pulls himself out of bed. He wears long sleeves and off white bandages that no one questions, an uchiwa everywhere he walks.

Old soup with rice crackers tastes dull in his mouth but this is better than shinobi rations. Not that he should feel so familiar with the taste, Mother had always disliked them, but something tells him he’s eaten enough for a lifetime. Chakra pills are the same way.

Boar Mask is above—not that he gives any signs of knowing. It's a muted chakra signature, one doused in old ink. If he pretends to not acknowledge the presence, reinforcements won't be called. It’s easy, they’ve been around since the moment he opened his eyes.

The Sharingan is important. Any disturbances in its vessel must be examined thoroughly.

The Hokage's tower is a fading figure from the compound, it is a wonder whether it's the Uchiha or Sarutobi imprisoned from here. Sasuke takes great satisfaction in knowing that with the right turn, he could disappear from this place for good without a single trail. Boar Mask would be lost to the now feral Hatake wolves lingering by.

THEN DO SO NOW.

Sasuke is a reasonable person, if Konoha has the highest chance of letting him get his hands on the archives, he will put up with it. His home is on this earth and it was where he had a brother and a mother and doting cousins and he'll be damned if he didn't take it with him.

Uzu's Scroll of Stasis is his only safe bet. 

That's what it said.

THAT'S WHEN I MEANT FOR YOU TO TAKE IT AND LEAVE. HE WOULD WANT YOU TO.

He is twelve, it is not wartime so he does not graduate early for the sake of a village’s image. It’s a sign of war for genin to be instated before the minimum age, this isn’t fifty years ago. Early graduates are omens anyhow.

Archive duty is assigned to genin only after they’ve completed one C-Rank and five D-Ranks at the Konoha Library. Only chunin take them though, it’s higher pay than usual for a mission desk after injury. He’ll only need a week working there, in the old musty scrolls too dangerous for libraries but not important enough are always tucked away in some corner. Shisui had a bad habit of leaking information to unsuspecting kids he babysat.

FOOL.

Shisui was a good man.

(The Naka River carries with it the scent of Uchiha blood as crows perch on every branch. Their feathers always had a distinctive sound.

A vision not his shows a boy with curly hair and bleeding empty sockets and a bloody eye handed to the hands not his.)

Locking the Uchiha Gates behind him is the hardest part of his mornings. Rattling chains that spoke of weariness and the old guards’ ever still lingering chakra signature breaking down by slight bits.

The autopsies had said they were the first ones killed that night.

ADD YOURSELF THEN. 

And it’s speaking again.

And a growl.

Red like pinwheels is soaking his arms now and it takes everything to suppress it from Boar Mask. When the voice threatens in silence, parts of Sasuke wants to tear itself from him. Not that he’s even sure it is him.

The red chakra could never though, its tries always end up in failure and glaring blisters like fires gone wrong. Sasuke makes sure to burn himself later in practice, for Boar Mask’s sake.

\- 

Today was the Genin Exams.

The watchers are far more stifling than before.

Sakura passes him with a pointed gait, faster than she would normally walk. Beside her, Ino takes a few moments to stare at him, shouting an elated greeting before moving off. He walks with them an arm’s length away and the two (three, counting Boar Mask and their people) parties pretend each other doesn’t exist until they reach the gate.

A body like fountains of blue chakra stirs up red.

SHE’S USEFUL. HIS PEOPLE.

Not the first time this has been mentioned.

“Haruno.”

Sasuke hates, in a way, how much he finds himself trusting the voices. A bubbling of red, satisfied and smug comes from within his core.

The girls flinch as Ino shoots Sakura a look with her lips pouted. 

“Sasuke-kun,” she smiles amicably, “My assignment isn’t due until next week.”

A reminder that the Academy has not sent any assignments home during the Genin Exam periods aside from paperwork that exposes too many errors in the system. It leaves passersby who can’t hide their glances all that well.

He inclines his head at her, “Circumstances have changed, you’re to submit what you have so far in three days.” 

They still have a crowd to fool so Sakura clings to his arms the moment it looks like he drops his guard. There are hearts and daggers in her eyes. She was terrified of him once upon a time, and it was the greatest reason why he chose her.

(A hand crackling in lightning is shoved through the chest of a girl with pink hair and emerald eyes, older than Sakura is.

Green chakra on his left and bitter eyes above him.)

“I hope you pass your exams, Sasuke-kun!” Sakura and Ino say in unison as he moves away from the two girls.

From Haruno, it sounds like a threat.

He passes.

-

Like before, he has to physically stop himself before the compulsion of the voice pulls him towards the front where an indignant Naruto sits (with the boy is Cat Mask who directs a glare at Boar Mask). The voice is obsessed with that boy, despite its denials. It doesn’t hate Uzumaki though, not like how it hates the Yondaime or the Sandaime or Boar Mask or this village or him.

FRIEND. FRIEND, FRIEND, FRIEND, _FRIEND_.

Uzumaki was not Sasuke's friend.

He was not even sure that the blond was a real Uzumaki at all.

There's a rumble like laughter from the red chakra within him.

Later, in front of the Academy, Uzumaki sits on a swing that threatens to fall. The people do not see him, no hitai-ate, and there’s a pit where the red usually is.

-

This is what Konoha knows: Sasuke is the last Uchiha remaining in Konoha, he is the top in his class, and all he wants is the blood of Itachi on his hands. He has not spent a single hour in therapy.

Every Academy teacher looks at him with some flavor of pity.

His peers only see a pedestal. 

What Konoha does not know: there are no Uchiha left loyal to the Sandaime, he hasn’t paid taxes for five years, he’s been Clan Head since seven, and all Sasuke wants is a home not responsible for the deaths of his clan.

There’s a pile of gold, a library of knowledge inside gated walls he won’t let Konoha touch.

So when he throws a kunai, he aims it a bit too close to where Boar Mask sits. 

YOU MISSED.

No. 

The ANBU stays put, not even a ruffling of leaves. He knows that there was a chakra spike twenty meters from where they are, then what could be a signal coming from the tree. He lets out a line of shuriken that hits every target.

Itachi could’ve done this in his sleep.

AND HE STILL DIED.

(In a battlefield, blood drips from his mouth as Itachi’s fingers fall from Sasuke’s forehead, leaving a trail of red. Debris clings on him, a curse well deserved, as the winds glare.)

Even if those dreams are true, Sasuke still held the unknown variable in his hands, a stronger weapon than any bloodline limit. His subconscious, the red chakra would have to try harder than this. 

YOU TRULY ARE IGNORANT TO WHO I AM? HOW THE UCHIHA HAS FALLEN.

No answers would be found where he is now, there is an archive he _will_ get his hands on even if it kills him. The voices speak lies intertwined with truths and Sasuke must know.

And when he attempts another katon, the seeping red chakra is like oil to the flames. It’s him, just him this time. The sentient voice of that chakra did nothing, Sasuke is sure of that more than anything, it was all him.

A mistake, despite wielding what feels like the pinnacle of power, he knows it’s a mistake, something that doesn’t quite fit into the greater flow of the universe. It’s unnatural and _wrong_ for him to let out into the world. There’s no movement from Boar Mask, not even a flicker of emotion—but that should be expected. Rarely do they let on any feeling except the desire to kill, even then, it’s as plastic as it could be.

That’s enough for today. He’s had enough excitement.

-

Sleeping is easy because Sasuke does not sleep. He has not since the day he stared into that man’s bleeding Mangekyou years ago, the reason for the hallway’s brown stains pooling beneath him like scarlet silk.

Instead, there is an endless expanse of murky ahead and above, a great cerulean sky. Sasuke has never seen the sea, never seen pass the confines of Konoha but he imagines this is what it feels like with the wind at his fingertips and the smell of salt seeping into his clothes. The sky is without a cloud or a burning sun even if he feels its warmth on his back.

He doesn’t look down.

At the horizon is the glittering of water and hum of energy and he wants to stay here forever until he doesn’t.

The red chakra refuses to show itself here, and there’s nothing but him. The chakra that he knows is his keeps him above the still waters like a memory he doesn’t remember learning. Not that he would say no—that time ended with him sinking until the sun was too far up to be called morning.

His eyes stay on the cerulean sky. 

There is no reflection at his feet, only a cyclops with a likeness to Sasuke's face and that man’s Mangekyo muttering heresy. Unlike the swirling anger of the red chakra, it’s a voice that could easily be mistaken for his, with a sorrow thousand deserts deep.

_In memoriam._

_Uchiha Sasuke._

“Tomorrow is team assignments?” there’s definitely amusement in that flat voice (along with longing and heartache and arrow-headed guilt.)

Sasuke’s sure the reflection knows full well what tomorrow is, it always does. It’s the only thing keeping him from believing that reflection is anything nearly close to being Uchiha Sasuke—he is not the person to go around in circles.

“Hn.”

“Protect yourself, Hound is not kind.”

“Hn,” it’s an acknowledgment this time and the reflection understands like anyone daring to call themselves Uchiha would by echoing him.

“You overextended your arm when releasing the last batch, your feet too far apart on the first. Even the world’s sharpest blade would be useless in your hands,” it said, “You’re using too much Yin chakra and lost control too easily. The fox’s chakra preys on that. Work on your control before anything else, it’s miserable.”

“Itachi anchors himself at that level.”

This was Sasuke’s favorite part, because unlike the red chakra’s hostile comments, the reflection was willing to work with him. It knows his thoughts like route and the way he functioned like clockwork and knew how to fix every joint. There’s a warning underlining each word whenever the reflection switches to that tone. The reflection might have every bit of him figured out but he could dissect every word too. The reflection despises Sasuke most of all.

“You are not him.”

Sasuke does not look down. A good choice.

“And the red chakra has no sway over me.”

“You say that with confidence.”

He didn’t. That was a lie. The reflection had said this world was his once, a mindscape of sorts deep in his core. 

“Do I need new weapons tomorrow?” his neck is starting to sore.

It takes more than a second for the reflection to answer him. “Perhaps more kunai unless you want to spend a day at the whetstone. Still, sharpen them.”

Oh, he knew that. Nevertheless, the weapon shop he frequents on the edge of the Sango-kaku District is open right before class. Punctuality might be emphasized in the textbooks but in practice is a different story; perhaps that was Uzumaki’s fault.


	2. reaching for the heavens, only bark at the stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of genin teams, Naruto, and a mission in between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well I'm late

Sasuke rises before the alarm, a packed lunch in one hand, and the last of his orphan pensions in the other. It wasn’t necessary but Konoha needed to keep up appearances. A small portion of his clan’s finances—including each member’s personal funds that hadn’t gone outside of the clan—could support him well after death. Even the Hokage couldn’t touch it under the Clan Laws.

Boar Mask is waiting for him at the door under a dying maple with a friend. It’s not someone who has watched him before, but the signature is familiar enough. They walk to the weapons shop then to the Academy at a mind-numbingly slow pace.

Uzumaki, who shouldn’t be in the team assignments in the first place, is growling at him. Their faces, so close together that Sasuke feels the other boy’s warm breath and a supernova of a chakra pool humming beneath his skin. Between them is the battling currents of electricity. Naruto’s eyes are the exact shade of cerulean as the skies in Sasuke’s mindscape.

“Um, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura’s voice calls out, a bit hesitant, amongst the other girls yelling for Naruto to disappear.

AH YES, THIS SCENE. 

He pulls out a little too late. Uzumaki’s lips on his, and it’s entirely the fault of that one Nara boy and Sasuke for not breaking the kiss as soon as it happens. Whatever reflexes he’d hone for the last eight years melts into from his fingertips like sand. If it were anyone but the Dead Last, Sasuke was sure he would be dead several times over, perhaps with a kunai through the nape or the guts.

The red chakra is laughing at him, there’s shrieking in the background, Naruto tastes like miso ramen. Only the last one he knows at this moment.

(He’s seen this moment before, on days when the reflection was as silent as Suna’s desert. The same electricity, the same second of lowered guards.)

It’s the blond who’s the one to separate, wide eyes and panting with an accusing finger pointed to Sasuke, who’s not much better. The only factor that keeps chaos one thread away is Iruka with a clipboard walking in. 

UZUMAKI NARUTO, HARUNO SAKURA, AND UCHIHA SASUKE.

The red chakra’s voice is perfectly in sync with that of Iruka, reciting it with sharp amusement. It does so too with Team Ten and Eight. That’s a flag.

They’re Team Seven. They have an instructor named Hatake Kakashi.

Sasuke has heard that name before, uttered under the breath of his father or the elders, and seen it written into the pages of the Bingo Books. The Copy-Nin and everything else is redacted because Academy Students aren’t yet privy to the world of shinobi.

Soon, they’re the last ones left in the classroom. Haruno is sending him looks while she waits for Naruto to lose his focus on her. The bag she has with her is heavier than usual—that should be the paper he commissioned. She looks as if she couldn’t have gotten over four hours of sleep last night and he’ll have to throw in a generous tip. 

Sakura is smart, would’ve been Top Rookie if not for the subpar taijutsu and kunoichi classes, with a textbook by her side at almost all times. He could work with that. The infatuation wore off when she began seeing him as an employer above a classmate. Most importantly, her records were not tracked to the most minute degree. 

Boar Mask must think they’re all that clever.

The reflection tells him otherwise though when he brings this up one night. Something about the emotionless concrete that is Foundation agents. Sasuke thinks the reflection knows Boar Mask though.

When Sakura slips him the paper, it’s harder than it needs to be.

“Don’t ask me to read a single line of Konoha’s legal system or Senju Tobirama’s works in a month,” she hisses with a perfect smile. That’s a lie anyhow, Haruno adores the man’s theories till the end of this earth. It’s more like a week before she’ll start on another project.

“Hn.”

The paper’s four centimeters thick, held together with a metal band and it hurts not to begin it immediately. He would have plenty of time later, Boar Mask’s still a tree away with another group of signatures somewhere near.

Uzumaki has been ignoring him like he’s been ignoring the tug of the red chakra towards the blond. When the cerulean eyes are passed by him though, Sasuke has the urge to strangle. 

IT SHOULD BE ABOUT TIME.

For what? That lousy instructor to show up? It’s been two hours already.

BY THE FOYER. ELECTRICITY AND FUR AND BLOOD.

Naruto has better ideas.

-

For an A-Rank nin to be unable to dodge an eraser is sad. His Bingo Book’s probably outdated then. Sasuke, and the red chakra by extension, know better than that. The white-haired man’s footsteps are silent like he’s gliding on air as most shinobi who used to bore a mask are. Itachi’s were the same when he walked past Sasuke in a bloody kitchen. 

Hatake Kakashi is the Copy-Nin with more than a thousand jutsu under his arsenal. He’s a jounin and possible ANBU. He has one eye There are dog hairs on his uniform at varying colors and lengths. Sasuke is certain this man used to belong with Naruto’s guards (and they’re guards, not surveillance like the ones at Sasuke’s tail). 

Boar Mask is gone.

Gone the moment when that classroom door opened and an eraser fell.

On top of the Academy’s roof is a second away from the restraints. Just a few steps and he'll be free, weaving through the tiled roof without the muted signature of old ink. He cannot yet, the Uzu’s scrolls and Konoha’s secrets are calling for him. 

(Every word his teammates said is layered with another voice but older, eventually, Sasuke lets go and repeats what the reflection’s voice says. It’s easier that way, saying a truth he no longer believes in.)

There are legends of the old, Mother had regaled them to him throughout his short childhood (that ended the moment he entered the Academy), of the Uzu before settling in Whirlpool Country. They had built entire villages from nothing and they had disappeared the night later to leave little less than flat plains behind. It was only creating Uzushiogakure did they finally set their roots deep into the ground and how that all came crumbling in one siege when most of their shinobi were gone, fighting a war for Konoha. Their allies left them to die.

Mother had told him a secret then too, that when Uzushio sent Konoha its living sacrifice, she walked through the gates with an entire village on her back. Literal or metaphysical.

Sasuke never asked why she knew, what in the hell a living sacrifice was and why Uzushio had to do that for a nation couldn’t even bother to send reinforcement while one of the greatest atrocities of that war was being committed.

“Teme?  _ Teme _ ,” the blond was almost bouncing on his feet. 

He grunts a reply that Naruto takes as an admission of defeat leading to the boy punching the air in a victory dance. It’s so  _ fucking _ embarrassing, they’re in the middle of a crowded street.

(Not hard though, to notice the sneers directed at Uzumaki since the beginning. The outburst exacerbates it. Sasuke thinks that part was on purpose. No, he’s always known that.) 

Sakura is trailing behind, doing her best to pretend she doesn’t know them. That’s fair, he supposes, she  _ knows  _ these people. 

HER PARENTS ARE MERCHANTS OF IRON COUNTRY.

That’s another way of saying they’re rich. She’s not yet genin even so it’s necessary she doesn’t provoke anything out of her league. They’re headed for a ramen stand Naruto’s soft on located near the shinobi district.

(A one-armed man with blond hair and whisker marks and cerulean eyes is next to him, a girl with pink hair and a purple diamond marking her forehead.)

(White hair is a blur when there’s a kunai pressed to his throat. The sound of chirping birds deafening ambiance.)

Hatake had told them to meet him here and something in Sasuke screams with the  _ wrongness _ of the situation. The red chakra believes so too, muttering with a quiet growl. Everything about this is  _ wrong, wrong, wrong, _ but familiar. 

Something in his gut, the reflection or the red chakra, he doesn’t know, is telling him that Hatake wasn’t supposed to linger this long with them. Sasuke should’ve been trailing back to the compound by now, about to pull open every book in his possession to fact check the bullshit coming from that man’s mouth, maybe even going through his katas.

FOCUS UCHIHA. THIS IS A TEST.

Yes, that was necessary, Sasuke cannot lose focus now. The red chakra is always correct in these scenarios.

_ He’s going to die, he’s never going to leave these walls, Konoha’s going to sink its filthy nails into his eye sockets, Itachi will be disappointed _ .

The food was okay at least.

-

It is almost noon and Sasuke is neck-deep into the earth with everything to lose. The other two are doing their best to dig him up. All of them hear the ticking clock as seconds—minutes pass by. What would the reflection do in this situation? It always knew what its next action was, with all a shinobi’s grace.

YOU ARE SMARTER THAN TO RELY ON THAT BASTARD.

Ah, a compliment from the red chakra. Sasuke could laugh, this situation is serious huh?

“Stop it,” Sasuke’s voice comes out rougher than usual. They don’t stop though, not even Naruto who’s doing this just for Sakura, “ _ Stop it. _ ”

This time they do.

“Look, we don’t have enough time for conversation,” Sakura says in a matter-of-fact tone and Naruto echoes something along those lines.

This is not the time.

“Don’t you dare pick up those shovels,” he has to pass this, “There’s a shop next to the Academy that sells bells similar to Hatake’s. Go get three, I’ll compensate later—hurry.”

Sakura’s eyes take on a new light when his words set it and sped away wordlessly, clearly used to Sasuke’s whims. She’s reliable like that. It leaves him alone with Naruto though, who’s gone back to digging, now more impassioned than ever, with a fire hotter than any Uchiha’s flames in his eyes.

-

They pass.

He can feel the red chakra grinning, perhaps the reflection too. There’s elation through his veins that seems to promise a victory if his cards are played right, maybe Boar Mask would leave him too. It’s wishful thinking though.

-

D-Ranks leave Sasuke with a burning desire to strangle his jonin instructor and whatever poor sod got them for the mission, perhaps sic Naruto on those too-gleeful desk chuunin. That would defeat the entire purpose as to why Sasuke’s putting up with Konoha though.

Very carefully, he mutters to an impatient Sakura next to him, “Can’t we just get a mission at the archives or something?”

“Anything but the hellcat,” she nods in agreement.

So naturally, she brings it up to Kakashi and they get themselves a brand new C-Rank. To the Land of Waves with a drunkard that Sasuke could smell a mile away. He wants to weep in a way unbecoming of an Uchiha so badly it hurts.

I REMEMBER THAT PLACE. IT’S CLOSE TO THAT WOMAN’S HOMELAND.

(‘The Woman’, as the red chakra calls her, with a growl of equal loathing and fondness. She was an Uzumaki, no doubt, and one long dead.)

Thank you.

He had forgotten.

Surely he could fake an accident or two, just long enough so he could get himself in front of Uzushio’s dilapidated gates. A step ever so tantalizingly close. Perhaps he’ll even find his mother’s red-haired friend. 

-

“You know,” Sakura steps into pace with him, they’re a bit away from the main group. “The Handbook says shinobi lingering from their group are prime targets for attack.”

He makes a sound of casual acknowledgment and picks up his pace slightly. There’s no use in arguing about things like this, not when Sakura’s involved. She’s excited, bouncing almost despite the dullness of the journey so far.

“The part about the Shodaime Mizukage’s involvement in the Second War was well researched,” Sasuke mutters in his best attempt at a conversation.

She almost stops in her tracks but grins instead, all teeth and he’s unbelievably glad that she’s no longer his devout follower.

-

A puddle on a sunny day ruins any illusions of safety. The man who smells of alcohol drowning out lies upon lies fears for his life with something deeper than himself and everything red is unbothered. 

Boar Mask is approaching tentatively, but too far away to do any good. 

(Sakura’s screams, poison running through Naruto, an unharmed mentor with nothing but nonchalant stone. There is a white rabbit, its red eyes the color of pinwheels looking into his soul like a seer. Iron in the air, small needles and all.)

“Are we continuing this mission, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura says when Sasuke couldn’t do it himself. She’s steady like that, the only one on this damned team with a put together life.

The reflection had told him earlier that night, within a vast cerulean, how to be sure an opponent stays dead and the proper method to pull out senbon with a nostalgic edge to its voice, then more about the power of a Clan Head. A warning if it's ever one. It whispered about the plants of this region until Sasuke lulled himself into a false peace but not once did it say ‘ _ No _ ’.

In situations like this, the responsible thing is obvious according to any handbook, but that has never worked on Naruto. Sasuke could care less whether this sorry man gets back to his village or no (somewhere deep in his subconscious, wrapped inside ink matrices, a man scoffs), just the promise and opportunity this presented.

Uzushio. A world outside of Konoha. 

YOU’RE SURE OF YOURSELF.

Doubt is an infestation, you would know that. Nothing good has come from him doubting himself. The red chakra shifts, rumbling something that sounds close to derogatory. 

“I’ll go,” Sasuke tilts his chin up, and that was what brings Sakura to agree (he’ll apologize one day).

The man who smells of alcohol over lies lets out a breath as Naruto punches the air in that blinding manner which brings Sasuke nothing but sets off his running heart. Just like that, they continue down the trembling dirt road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke you emotionally constipated child, you'll be okay. Thank you for your comments and support!

**Author's Note:**

> go yell at me on twitter [@hoalianyas](https://twitter.com/hoalianyas?s=09)


End file.
